NEWBIES: Would you have guessed that small local newspapers are one of the most active M&A sectors in media? Last year, 70 daily newspapers were sold in deals totaling $827 million, the most since the 2008 economic crisis. And New Media, a generically-named company managed by private-equity firm Fortress Investment Group LLC that you’ve probably never heard of, has been one of the most aggressive buyers, snatching up 100 newspapers over the past two years, reports The Wall Street Journal. The company now owns 575 titles, running against the conventional wisdom that newspapers are a financial mess. (Didn’t Tribune Publishing just have to bring in a new investor and replace its CEO?) New Media’s strategy has been to roll up smaller papers and then cut costs and consolidate operations. And believe it or not, many local newspapers still have a lock on local ads.

DEAD ZONES: AMC’s “The Walking Dead” is one of the biggest shows on TV. And in certain rural pockets of the U.S., cable subscribers can no longer tune into the show, reports WSJ. About 105 small cable operators representing 350,000 some odd homes have stopped carrying AMC. That’s because the National Cable Television Cooperative, which negotiates on behalf of hundreds of smaller cable companies, recently agreed to a new deal with AMC that essentially doubled the fees cable distributors will pay the network over the next few years. And 105 of those regional systems chose not to sign on for the higher expense. Losing 350,000 homes is hardly going to put AMC out of business, and ratings for “The Walking Dead” remain solid. What will be more telling for the TV business is whether local providers, which are increasingly dependent on broadband, are able to endure dropping big cable networks without subscriber revolts. That just might encourage bigger cable companies to tell the AMCs of the world to take a walk next time.

WORLD SERIOUS: Do you remember when CNN and Sports Illustrated collaborated on a cable network that had designs on taking on ESPN? Neither do the people that worked there. But now the venerable Sports Illustrated is back in the TV business—on the other side of the world. Parent company Time Inc. has inked a licensing deal with Hong Kong-based All Sports Network Ltd. which will result in two Asian pay TV sports networks getting rebranded as Sports Illustrated, reports CMO Today. It’s the first time the SI brand will be on the dial since CNN Sports Illustrated went off the air in 2002. Besides monetizing the SI name more globally, the deal also might help bring more sports fans to TV in a part of the world dominated by mobile media consumption.

Elsewhere

Viacom is looking for a minority investor in its struggling Paramount movie studio [WSJ]

Scripps Networks is planning to purchase the 35% interest in the Travel Channel it doesn’t already own from Cox [Multichannel News]

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